Thursday, April 05, 2007

Evolution for Idiots

Here's a short video that has just been posted on The Panda's Thumb. You can read the comments over there or watch the video here. Let's make our own list of everything that's wrong with it. Sometimes I wonder whether these things help or hurt the cause of science education. Today I'm leaning towards "hurt."

14 comments
:

If you cut the movie from the moment a chimp shows up on until the end, thus having only the evolving smiley-faces remaining, would you still say it is that bad? There are oversimplifications, but for a viewer who know NOTHING about evolution, this can bring a visceral understanding of the process, upon which one can build actual knowledge afterwards, if interested.

At the risk of "damning with faint praise", the best I can say is that it was better than the peanut butter disproof of abiogenesis. I disagree with Coturnix's statement that it would help someone completely unfamiliar with evolution, as I think you need to know what to look for to even see the points they are trying to make. On the other hand, it could potentially be a useful visual aid to go along with a more involved explanation.

Huh?I don't know what the hell that was supposed to be about, even though I do know what it was supposed to be about (if you get my meaning).

Trying to see the variation among faces at the start was like doing one of those "find six differences between these pictures" puzzles, only it flashed by too fast, then there was no clear connection between the environments and the differential fitness.

Creationists make a distinction between macro-evolution (which they say is impossible) and micro-evolution, which is too obvious too ignore. Macro-evolution is the same process on a longer time scale and this is all that the video is trying to show.

It wasn't trying to show the detail of how evolution works, just the silliness of trying to claim a "barrier" to macro-evolution.

In this light, I say it helps. As an instructional tool, you are right that it hurts.

Macro-evolution is the same process on a longer time scale and this is all that the video is trying to show.

That that's incorrect, as I attempt to show in my essay on Macroevolution.

This is one of the reasons why I object to the video. It assumes that continuing strong positive natural selection leads directly to something beyond microevolution. Real biology is not that simple. If we dumb down evolution to the point were the explanation is incorrect then how are we any better than the Creationist liars?

The creationist target people with no scientific education. If you say, well im not gonna dumb this down such than an idiot can understand it, you dont have to be a great strategist to realise you will never reach the target audience.

Damn straight I knew exactly what i was doing when i made this vid. I could have included the code, the genetic drift fitness and all sorts of other shit, but the target audiance wouldnt have understood a word.

Get with the programme! this is not a scientific debate among academic peers, you are not trying to win the hearts and minds of scientists, you are trying to win the hearts and minds of idiots with no scientific understanding.

let me follow on by saying that there really arnt that many photos from 1 million years ago.

Creationist make a big song and dance about ‘the only evidence that we came from primates is imaginary drawings’.

Taking these two factors into account I did the best I could.

This is not a scientific paper, its 2 mins of vid. I could have made it explicit, but then it would not have reached the target audience.

Its like bein critical of those vids where one animal morphs into another cos evolution works over multiple generations, no one creature changing."

Get with the programme! this is not a scientific debate among academic peers, you are not trying to win the hearts and minds of scientists, you are trying to win the hearts and minds of idiots with no scientific understanding.

I prefer to try and win hearts and minds by teaching correct and accurate versions of evolution. This is a war between truth/rationalism and lies/superstition. If you abandon truth in order to win a battle then you've lost the war.

Just to be clear about the intellectual level of the people you have to convince, these are some comments posted on the above video.

'Evolution works real good on a computer program.How many years does a dog or wolf,or any land animal for that matter, have to swim before it grows fins.Evolution is a fairy tale for adults.Praise God.'

'When did the soul "evolve".I take it you disagree with Genesis "God made them after their own kind".'

'1 Corinthians 15,500 eyewitnesses saw Jesus after his resurrection. How many eyewitnesses have seen macro-evolution? Praise God.'

'If any of the thousands of vital organs evolved, how could the organism live before getting the vital organ? Without a vital organ, the organism is dead—by definition.'

'If a reptile's leg evolved into a bird's wing, wouldn't it become a bad leg long before it became a good wing? How could metamorphosis evolve?'

'The coma should have been a period. 500eyewitnesses saw Jesus after His resurrection.They not only saw Him, they talked with Him and learned from Him.Most were still alive when 1 Corinthians was written so if it was a lie don't you think someone would have said something? Praise God.'

-I somehow dont think addition of the details of genetic drift in small populations is gonna be a decisive factor!

The video was silly but humorous, very much like the stuff that comes out of the mouths of those who 'preach' evolution as a real science.

If evolutionists want to end the arguments all they have to do is, get their brilliant heads together and assemble a 'simple' living cell. This should be possible, since they certainly have a very great amount of knowledge about what is inside the 'simple' cell.

After all, shouldn't all the combined Intelligence of all the worlds scientist be able the do what chance encounters with random chemicals, without a set of instructions, accomplished about 4 billion years ago,according to the evolutionists, having no intelligence at all available to help them along in their quest to become a living entity. Surely then the evolutionists scientists today should be able to make us a 'simple' cell.

If it weren't so pitiful it would be humorous, that intelligent people have swallowed the evolution mythology.

Beyond doubt, the main reason people believe in evolution is that sources they admire, say it is so. It would pay for these people to do a thorough examination of all the evidence CONTRARY to evolution that is readily available: Try answersingenesis.org. The evolutionists should honestly examine the SUPPOSED evidence 'FOR' evolution for THEMSELVES.

Build us a cell, from scratch, with the required raw material, that is with NO cell material, just the 'raw' stuff, and the argument is over. But if the scientists are unsuccessful, perhaps they should try Mother Earth's recipe, you know, the one they claim worked the first time about 4 billion years ago, so they say. All they need to do is to gather all the chemicals that we know are essential for life, pour them into a large clay pot and stir vigorously for a few billion years, and Walla, LIFE!

Oh, you don't believe the 'original' Mother Earth recipe will work? You are NOT alone, Neither do I, and MILLIONS of others!

How about that rediclous opening sceine from 2001 A SPACE ODDESEY with those silly paemen sitting around i mean this whole idea of EVOLUTION is stupid and rediclous only a complete moron would think humans and chimps are related

Laurence A. Moran

Larry Moran is a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto. You can contact him by looking up his email address on the University of Toronto website.

Sandwalk

The Sandwalk is the path behind the home of Charles Darwin where he used to walk every day, thinking about science. You can see the path in the woods in the upper left-hand corner of this image.

Disclaimer

Some readers of this blog may be under the impression that my personal opinions represent the official position of Canada, the Province of Ontario, the City of Toronto, the University of Toronto, the Faculty of Medicine, or the Department of Biochemistry. All of these institutions, plus every single one of my colleagues, students, friends, and relatives, want you to know that I do not speak for them. You should also know that they don't speak for me.

Subscribe to Sandwalk

Quotations

The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me to be so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows.Charles Darwin (c1880)Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views given in this volume, I by no means expect to convince experienced naturalists whose minds are stocked with a multitude of facts all viewed, during a long course of years, from a point of view directly opposite to mine. It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as "plan of creation," "unity of design," etc., and to think that we give an explanation when we only restate a fact. Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of a certain number of facts will certainly reject the theory.

Charles Darwin (1859)Science reveals where religion conceals. Where religion purports to explain, it actually resorts to tautology. To assert that "God did it" is no more than an admission of ignorance dressed deceitfully as an explanation...

Quotations

The world is not inhabited exclusively by fools, and when a subject arouses intense interest, as this one has, something other than semantics is usually at stake.
Stephen Jay Gould (1982)
I have championed contingency, and will continue to do so, because its large realm and legitimate claims have been so poorly attended by evolutionary scientists who cannot discern the beat of this different drummer while their brains and ears remain tuned to only the sounds of general theory.
Stephen Jay Gould (2002) p.1339
The essence of Darwinism lies in its claim that natural selection creates the fit. Variation is ubiquitous and random in direction. It supplies raw material only. Natural selection directs the course of evolutionary change.
Stephen Jay Gould (1977)
Rudyard Kipling asked how the leopard got its spots, the rhino its wrinkled skin. He called his answers "just-so stories." When evolutionists try to explain form and behavior, they also tell just-so stories—and the agent is natural selection. Virtuosity in invention replaces testability as the criterion for acceptance.
Stephen Jay Gould (1980)
Since 'change of gene frequencies in populations' is the 'official' definition of evolution, randomness has transgressed Darwin's border and asserted itself as an agent of evolutionary change.
Stephen Jay Gould (1983) p.335
The first commandment for all versions of NOMA might be summarized by stating: "Thou shalt not mix the magisteria by claiming that God directly ordains important events in the history of nature by special interference knowable only through revelation and not accessible to science." In common parlance, we refer to such special interference as "miracle"—operationally defined as a unique and temporary suspension of natural law to reorder the facts of nature by divine fiat.
Stephen Jay Gould (1999) p.84

Quotations

My own view is that conclusions about the evolution of human behavior should be based on research at least as rigorous as that used in studying nonhuman animals. And if you read the animal behavior journals, you'll see that this requirement sets the bar pretty high, so that many assertions about evolutionary psychology sink without a trace.

Jerry Coyne
Why Evolution Is TrueI once made the remark that two things disappeared in 1990: one was communism, the other was biochemistry and that only one of them should be allowed to come back.

Sydney Brenner
TIBS Dec. 2000
It is naïve to think that if a species' environment changes the species must adapt or else become extinct.... Just as a changed environment need not set in motion selection for new adaptations, new adaptations may evolve in an unchanging environment if new mutations arise that are superior to any pre-existing variations

Douglas Futuyma
One of the most frightening things in the Western world, and in this country in particular, is the number of people who believe in things that are scientifically false. If someone tells me that the earth is less than 10,000 years old, in my opinion he should see a psychiatrist.

Francis Crick
There will be no difficulty in computers being adapted to biology. There will be luddites. But they will be buried.

Sydney Brenner
An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: 'I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one.' I can't help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist

Richard Dawkins
Another curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understand it. I mean philosophers, social scientists, and so on. While in fact very few people understand it, actually as it stands, even as it stood when Darwin expressed it, and even less as we now may be able to understand it in biology.

Jacques Monod
The false view of evolution as a process of global optimizing has been applied literally by engineers who, taken in by a mistaken metaphor, have attempted to find globally optimal solutions to design problems by writing programs that model evolution by natural selection.